1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a fuel tank having an immersion heating element assembly and more particularly pertains to a new and improved fuel tank immersion heating element assembly which is directly immersible into a supply of fuel contained within a tank and rest on the bottom of the tank.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The use of fuel heaters is generally well known in the art. However, most of the prior art fuel heaters are designed for insertion into existing fuel supply lines whereby the fuel is heated during its flow from a fuel supply tank to an internal combustion engine or some other type of fuel consuming device. In this respect, no provision is generally made for heating fuel while it is still contained in a fuel supply tank due to the large amount of heat normally required to maintain the fuel at an elevated temperature. This present problems, however, since some fuels, such as diesel fuel or the like, tend to gel in low temperature weather whereby it becomes very difficult to draw the fuel out of a supply tank for an intended use.
To overcome this problem, there has been at least one attempt to manufacture an electrically powered immersion heater which is designed to be permanently attached to a fuel supply tank. In this connection, reference is made to U.S. Pat. No. 2,266,985, issued to Morgan et al on Dec. 23, 1941, wherein there is disclosed an electric immersion heater which is specifically intended to be used for heating the oil in aircraft. However, the Morgan device is designed as an attached semi-permanent or permanent part of the aircraft and accordingly, it must be removed from the filler hole each time oil is added to the aircraft. This, of course, creates problems in that it becomes a complex operation to simply add oil to the aircraft, thus presenting the danger that mechanics or other maintenance personnel will be dissuaded from adding the needed oil due to the trouble involved. As such, there still exists a need for a fuel oil tank heater which may be easily installed within a fuel oil supply tank, which is efficient and dependable in its operation, and which presents no additional problems for personnel attempting to add a supply of fuel oil to the tank. In this respect, the present invention substantially fulfils this need.